Demystifying the Science and Art of Political Polling - By Mark Blumenthal

October 03, 2005

Happy New Year

MP apologizes for the slack posting over the last week or so, especially since the arrival of the year 5766* promises to put us out of commission, blogwise, for at least another 24 hours.

In the meantime, true polling junkies may want to check out and comment on these developments in the world of political polling generally overlooked on a day full of news about Harriet Miers.

First, Newsweek released a new survey over the weekend that is heavy on questions on the implications of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, (MP cannot find the usual press release with the full results, but the Polling Report has complete results of Bush, Hurricane and Iraq questions and probably for those willing to browse by topic).

Second, an alliance of activists on the blogosphere's left wing that had been pushing media pollsters to ask questions about impeaching President George W. Bush have taken a different tack: They are now raising money to conduct their own poll. MP had hoped to post some thoughts on this today, but simply ran out of time. We'll come back to this one.

"Professional pollster Mark Blumenthal started Mystery Pollster to provide better interpretation of polling results and methodology... offers much needed help to Political Wire readers" - Political Wire